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IDDINGS 





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COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr 



From 
Here and There 



By 

J. WIGHT GIDDINGS 




Cochrane Publishing Company 

Tribune Building 

New York 

1910 



T5 3^>3 



Copyright, 1910, by 
Cochrane Publishing Co. 



©C1.A268049 



"to- 



3 



To one who putiently listened to these vagaries^ 
cheered hp her interest and aided hy her counsel, 
this little volume is dedicated. 



From Here and There 



DEEAMS. 

I WONDER how soon, after we first open our baby blue 
eyes in this wondrous world, dreams come to us. I do 
not mean those abnormal hallucinations that creep into 
our brain cells in the black silence of the night and ter- 
rorize us with their creepy horrors; nor even those that 
steal in upon us and paint for us some exquisite pic- 
tures; or when, from out of the unknowable, comes the 
face that we have idolized, and which is no longer here, 
or when we heard that dear voice, so long silent now, 
and to which we listen again with rapturous eagerness. 
These are precious visitations, and we cherish them 
with passionate longing, but they are so fleeting and 
unreal. 

By dreams, I mean those entrancing visions of the 
daylight, when we forget ourselves and our world wor- 
ries, and drift out far, far away into that enticing land 
where they build those fragile but enchanting castles 
in the air. If we are to believe the over fond mother, 
those are day dreams the baby has, when lying on its 
pillow, eyes wide open, a funny wrinkle twists the tiny 
mouth into* absurd formations; and she will tell you 
that out from the mysterious land of somewhere, visions 
are appearing that come only to the age of babyhood, 
and are neither seen nor understood by coarse fibered 



From Here and There 



DEEAMS. 

I WONDER how soon, after we first open our baby blue 
eyes in this wondrous world, dreams come to us. I do 
not mean those abnormal hallucinations that creep into 
our brain cells in the black silence of the night and ter- 
rorize us with their creepy horrors ; nor even those that 
steal in upon us and paint for us some exquisite pic- 
tures; or when, from out of the unknowable, comes the 
face that we have idolized, and which is no longer here, 
or when we heard that dear voice, so long silent now, 
and to which we listen again with rapturous eagerness. 
These are precious visitations, and we cherish them 
with passionate longing, but they are so fleeting and 
unreal. 

By dreams, I mean those entrancing visions of the 
daylight, when we forget ourselves and our world wor- 
ries, and drift out far, far away into that enticing land 
where they build those fragile but enchanting castles 
in the air. If we are to believe the over fond mother, 
those are day dreams the baby has, when lying on its 
pillow, eyes wide open, a funny wrinkle twists the tiny 
mouth into* absurd formations; and she will tell you 
that out from the mysterious land of somewhere, visions 
are appearing that come only to the age of babyhood, 
and are neither seen nor understood by coarse fibered 



6 FEOM HEEE AND THERE 

maturity. But the brutal uncle standing by laughs at 
the conceit, and describes the droll contortions to un- 
pleasant sensations in the internal arrangements of 
the tiny structure. 

Dreams are among the first products of the working 
of the human brain, however, and intrude themselves 
into the most prosaic atmosphere, bringing pure delight 
and unshadowed joy. They may fade gently away into 
nothingness, or be shattered by cold, ruthless reality, 
but they are beautiful, hopeful, helpful, after all. Most 
day dreams, I fancy, are woven about that decoying 
sometime, when our ship comes in — that elusive dream 
ship which every human being has out on the sunny 
sea of imagination, and which is always treasure laden, 
with breezes of good will driving it thither. But how 
rarely it reaches harbor, for we load it too heavily with 
our wishes, and anchor it too strongly with our hopes. 

It is the ideal, rather than the real, that appeals in 
life after all, and brings to us the higher, the sweeter 
joys. The heralds of our happiness are the beautiful, 
romantic, sentimental sprites that touch the chords of 
human nature which coarser, more practical, more nor- 
mal things do not know the fineness of, nor do they 
know where to touch them. 

That young man, dreaming as he labors, of what the 
future is going to bring; weaving that gilt and tinsel 
fabric which sometime, perchance, has developed into 
cloth of gold, found, I half believe, more delight in 
his tinsel than afterward came to him in the possession 
of the gold. And not the least of the change from the 
dream life to the reality of the possession, came in the 
passing on from the dream life and the wrecking of 



PEOM HERE AND THEEE 7 

the dream ship, for the vision has become a reality, and 
is it as enchanting as he thought? This little bit of 
fragile philosophy is not a plea for a dreamer's life nor 
a view opposed to achievement, but we are led to won- 
der sometimes, as we view the worries and the apparent 
unhappiness that ofttimes seem to be the ruling spirits 
in those who have achieved, if the hopes of possession 
did not over-balance the enchantment of the reality. 
This application, I confess, is more fitting to the amass- 
ing of great wealth or the attainment of lofty position, 
those things that are material, yet which are the usual 
cargo of that ship of dreams. 

But these visions of the sunlight, these day dreams, 
are of other things than material. They weave such 
beautiful pictures for youth, full of sentiment and of 
that truly greatest thing in the world, which we have 
called Love. Every boy and every girl has been wooed 
by that soft and dreamy atmosphere of a summer day, 
out into those realms of extravagant fancy, and have 
painted dream pictures such as canvas could never por- 
tray. If there are those who have never known that 
ecstacy of a summer dream, out in the fragrant wood, 
where the crystal stream rippled its laughter and its 
music as if in companionable, yet chaffing mood with 
the exquisite revery, they have missed one of the big 
things in life. How one's sympathy goes out to the 
boys and girls who have never had a chance to dream 
out a romance in the sunshine and the shade, where the 
warmth and the coolness, the blue sky and the twisting 
leaves, and waving meadows, all were in combination to 
conjure up the airy phantoms that are of the enchant- 
ment world. Always there comes to me when thinking 



8 PROM HEEE AND THEEE 

of those children to whom just these visions cannot 
come, because they live in what is really another world, 
those tender words of Edgar Guest : 

''The crowded street his playground is, 

A patch of blue his sky ; 

A puddle in a vacant lot 

His sea where ships pass by; 

And he would like the open fields. 

For sometimes, in his dreams 

The kindly angels bear him out 

To where are pleasant streams. 

Where he may sail a splendid boat ; 

Sometimes he flies a kite, 

Or romps beside a shepherd dog 

And shouts with all his might, 

But when the light of morning comes. 

He wakes to find once more. 

That what he thought were sun-kissed hills. 

Are rags upon the floor." 

To those who are giving to such children a chance to 
dream, God is going to be very good. Thus dreams 
youth — of joy, happiness, life, love. Maturity dreams, 
too, but the visions are less vivid, the colors more of 
the afterglow of the sunset. If success has been wary 
or fickle, the dream is still of success; if fortune has 
been lavish, then come visions of some one thing want- 
ed, yet not attained, for there must be dreams. There 
are always haunting regrets and crushing memories of 
things committed or of things uncommitted, and with 
memories must come dreams — of forgiveness perhaps, 



PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 9 

of restoration, of rehabilitation, but dreams still, though 
more somber than those of earlier years. And of what 
does old age dream? What visions unfold to those 
whose eyes are dimmed and whose faculties have lost 
their keenness, and with whom romance has been 
crushed by relentless realities? Has the dream life 
ended with the heavy burden of years? or do -those 
almost in sight of the border land dream of the things 
which have been so long unrevealed, and are they the 
visions of things ^^ unseen"? 

But dreams they must always be, dreams only, of 
youth, of maturity, of old age, until the summons 
comes to each one and he passes from anticipation to 
reality. 



C ( 



THE BLUES.^ ' 



Who ever thought of calling them ''The Blues"? 
They are cosmopolitan, of course, and everybody has 
been afflicted with them, from the youngster who 
emerges from the wood shed — the boy's court house — 
with his heart filled with wrath at the injustice he has 
suffered, and his trousers with a smarting, stinging 
package of his anatomy^ where a slab of clapboard had 
been so dastardly and inhumanly applied; from the 
maiden in whose heart is woe, in that the first beau of 
her now wrecked life had been weaned from admiration 
of her flaxen hair, so often praised, to the raven tresses 
of her rival ; from middle life, which looks back on glo- 
rious ambitions and radiant hopes pilloried against the 
wall which Fate itself, it seemed, had builded, but over 
which others, less gifted, had climbed without apparent 



10 FEOM HEEE AND THEKE 

effort, to old age with all behind, whatever there may 
have been, of joy or sorrow, waiting in the shadows of 
this part of existence, for the gate, but just ajar, to be 
opened on what lies beyond. 

No life has been without them, these miscalled blues. 
They come from a legion of causes, but they touch with 
somber tint the inner thought and outer life, and dark- 
en the very universe with their murky cheerlessness. 
They sap the mental vitality, they obscure all light, 
they spread utter desolation, they are the fountain of 
misanthropy. 

They are appalling things, these umbrageous blues. 
But why ^^The Blues''? 

It has ever seemed a freakish, unfair application of 
a color which has ever stood for purity, coolness, light. 
There is nothing gloomy suggested in the blue sky of a 
summer day, nor that same boundless arch on a moon- 
light night; nothing of treachery or darkness in the 
bright blue eye, that seems frank and appealing al- 
ways; naught disquieting in the dark and limpid blue 
of the ocean, stretching limitless in its broad expanse. 
It is only when the storm blackens it, and Boreas crests 
its somber waves with foam, that one feels its danger 
or its awful and insatiate power. Whence, then, came 
^^The Blues''? 

The expression is a libel on one of our choicest colors 
to denominate those fantastic, dour, and gloomy dol- 
drums, ^^The Blues." 

There is some sense in saying a man ''sees red." 
There is something likely to be happening when this 
gay color predominates . There is nothing soothing nor 



FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 11 

quiescent about red. It means the gay, showy, blazing, 
the exciting, the terrible. 

No one ever questions how that person is feeling who 
*'sees red,'' and that is a good time to fade from the 
landscape into an atmosphere of another color, leaving 
the one imbued with crimson sensations to have it out 
by himself. 

It is an attractive tint in its way, is red, and in its 
place is admirable, but it always means something ani- 
mated. It was meant to attract especial attention, to 
divert, to stimulate. Hence the red light in the rail- 
road yard which checks the thunderous charge of the 
locomotive, and speaks silently but potently of danger, 
and signals the never disregarded command, '^Halt." 
Hence the red fire wagon, it means readiness, speed, 
fury; the Y?d circus chariot, it means gaiety, life, ex- 
citement; the red auction flag, it means something un- 
usual, extraordinary, probably; big bargains — perhaps. 

So when some citizen of a quiet hamlet starts out un- 
der the influence of a superabundance of spirits to 
decorate another man's town, he is commonly accused 
of *' Painting it red." Thus the use of this color in con- 
nection ^^dth things abounding in the gay or the festive 
seems ever appropriate. 

There is truly nothing peaceful nor reposeful about 
red. 

Then how expressive is, ''That dark brovvTi taste." 
Anyone wlio has had it, and most of us have, from one 
cause or another, can think of that indelicate, cheap, 
disorderly taste in no other way than as being dark 
broA^Ti. It is not a favorite color in nature. Most of 
her fall and winter browns are a shade that attracts. 



12 PEOM HEEE ATs^D THERE 

but they are not dark. It is strange, but the thought 
of dark brown has an unpleasant suggestion about it. 
All those glass jars and bottles on the shelves in the 
pharmacy have many colored drugs in them. None of 
them, possibly, are particularly attractive, when their 
uses are considered, but those filled with that dark 
brown powder awaken a feeling of indisposition, and it 
simply tastes dark brown. 

Human nature is the most perverse element on this 
planet. Sometimes it seems utterly thinkless, or if it 
thinks, it thinks it will do what it wants to do, regard- 
less of deductions. Hence the epidemic of the dark 
brown taste the morning after. 

Then there is the '^Yellow Streak." It seems almost 
a pity to ally this bright and beautiful color with any- 
thing unpleasant, and yet its most ardent admirers 
must admit that there is something tremendously sug- 
gestive in the expression, ''He has a yellow streak." 
We know he is a quitter. We know he will fail pitiably 
at the test ; that he will run at the first fire : that the 
spirit of courage, be it mental or physical, is entirely 
lacking in his make-up. If he has blue blood or red 
blood, he has our respect and admiration, but if it is 
tinged with yellow! That is a mark that is ever dis- 
tinguishable. He cannot mask it with an assumption 
of braggadocio or fustian; he cannot be trusted. The 
quality that appeals in this world is courage. History 
gives the man of courage the distinctive pages in its 
record. In war, in religion, in science, no matter what 
the field, it is the man of bravery, of courage, who has 
made epochs in the world's events, and who lives on 
after he has gone. Loyalty to any cause, from that pa- 



FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 13 

triotic impulse which sacrifices even life in battle, to 
the loyalty of private life, to home, to friendship, to 
any true principle, is one of the greatest virtues in the 
world. It can never exist, hovv^ever, in the same tene- 
ment with the Yellow Streak. 

There is no mistaking the meaning of ^^He's green." 
He is unripe, that is the whole substance of it. Some- 
times green things appeal to us, and figure among life's 
luxuries. Corn on the cob, though inelegant, is ever in 
fashion, even if it is immature. Cucumbers, in pickle 
and out, have a seductive disposition, and the most ver- 
dant complexion of the Georgia watermelon has never 
yet been a deterrent from an attack on its luscious pink 
interior. Nature has given to most eatables that are 
ripe, some decoying tinge, but it is very rarely green, 
and that color in fruit has about it a hint of indiges- 
tion. Often it is restful to the eye, but untranquil to 
the esophagus. There is one reassuring thought about 
green things, however. They do get ripe. For the 
greenhorn there is always hope after proper length and 
style of seasoning. 

Thus in spite of the unique figures of our vocabulary 
and our unbridled applications of terms, we are not, in 
the main, far awry in our color scheme. One real error, 
not to say perversion, however, is in using the soft, 
grateful, pleasing color like blue to describe what is 
lugubrious, cheerless, morbid. We are not quite just 
in designating our woe begone and deranged sensations 
as ^^The Blues." 



14 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 

SINCERITY. 

Perhaps one of the most scarce, though the most 
commendable quality of the human race, is sincerity. 
The lack of it is so common that we have no business 
to be hurt when we find that our supposed friend, 
whom we really trusted and believed in, has been saying 
mean things, when, in our innocence, we thought he 
might be saying good ones. No wonder, that with the 
knowledge that these things are so, we warm up to the 
true and loyal person whom we know is staunch and 
honest with us. It is a queer quality, this knocking 
quality, this tendency to hand your friend a lemon 
when you think he is giving sugar plums. . Not that 
sugar plums belong to maturity so much as to infancy, 
but an unsweetened lemon does not really belong to the 
average person who is trying to be on the square. I 
used to think that politics was the field where two- 
facedness flourished most luxuriantly and grew to the 
greatest rankness, but I am not sure. 

Once, when I was new in politics and believed in peo- 
ple, I was a candidate for office. A friend of mine was 
going to nominate me, at least he said he would, so, in 
my callow and unsophisticated pulchritude, I thought 
he would. The day of the convention I sat in the hall, 
and waited for the time to come when, through the elo- 
quence of my friend, I would be pushed into the lime- 
light. At last the time came, and as my friend ascend- 
ed the platform, I sat expectantly, and in well-feigned 
humility, to hear myself exploited by my friend. I 
wondered if, after I was nominated, I would not be 



FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 15 

called upon to scatter a few gems of thought among the 
eonventionists. My friend began to speak. He spoke 
eloquently, he praised his candidate and set forth his 
qualities, which, though a little extravagant, I assumed 
might be applied to me. Then the shock came. My 
friend had nomixfated another fellow, and the qualities 
he had so magnificently and munificently set forth 
were not my qualities at all. That was an awful mo- 
ment. Humiliation, wrath, pain, hatred, enlightenment 
all possessed me in succession. I was defeated, but I 
had learned something. I had learned that the word 
insincerity was the biggest and most potential word in 
the political dictionary, and that if a man could not 
ride in the band wagon, in politics, he would best re- 
move himself from the procession. My friend had 
climbed into the band wagon, and I was in the roadside, 
looking on. It was not agreeable, but it was salutary. 
The sensation was painful, but it w^as illuminating. It 
taught me that a political promise was a fragile reed, 
and was not intended to be leaned upon. This incident 
is not set up as a wholesale charge against any man who 
is in politics, but only as an evidence of what has hap- 
pened and is going to happen again. It is not a whole- 
sale charge of insincerity, but a little tale showing that 
there is such a thing extant in the political world. But 
there are others. Hypocrisy is rampant, and Jekyll and 
Hyde are no fictitious individuals. Everybody has them 
in a more or less virulent form — the good, the evil, the 
staunch and the vacillating, the sincere and the hypo- 
critical characteristics. 

This all has a pessimistic tenor, but it is not so in- 
tended. It is rather a plea for more individual and per- 



16 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 

sonal honesty of procedure for true friendship for a 
friend. It hurts terribly to find out that the one who 
has been so pleasant with you, so confidential, so chum- 
my, and who has won your regard, has been saying lit- 
tle mean and spiteful things of you when you were not 
among those present. And what 's the use ? This world 
is filled with beautiful things to talk about. It is filled 
with splendid people, and I do not see why it is not just 
as easy, and surely it is just as pleasant, to say nice 
things as disagreeable ones. '^ Speak not evil one of an- 
other.'' That was an injunction given ages ago. It 
shows the tendency of the human family, from the time 
that family originated, to be mean instead of decent; 
to gossip impertinently and despicably about your 
friend's character and your neighbor's business. It is 
not a square deal. One is led to wonder what kind of 
people would be the outgrowth of a combined effort on 
the part of all people to be sincere with each other, and, 
''Go about doing good." 

This does not mean to condone evil, but eradicate it ; 
not to overlook crime or offense, but punish it, that is, 
to give each his due. I wonder if, in time, evil would 
not be lessened, the bad in human nature eradicated, 
and the desire to be just and fair, and sincere, become 
the ruling spirit in humanity. It would make us all 
feel more comfortable, anyway, and would make a bet- 
ter world. This sounds like the millennium, and per- 
haps we will not reach such a condition short of that, 
but we can be a good deal better than we are. 

Ever since jokes were first perpetrated, or alleged 
jokes, Womankind has been made the foremost figure in 
them. Her sewing society and club has been set forth 



FEOM HEKE AND THEEE 17 

as a temple of gossip, where the back biter and the pos- 
sessor of the sharp, agile tongue did artistic execution. 
This may be so. I was never initiated into a sewing 
circle, nor belonged to a w^oman's club, but I have sat 
waiting in a chair in the operating room of a tonsorial 
artist, meekly biding my time, and have listened to as 
subtle and incessant a flow of gossip as ever rolled off 
from human tongues. 

No woman, nor set of women, ever had a corner on 
insincerity, nor ever had a temple where friend and 
neighbor were excoriated and flayed with any more 
skill or rancor than those places where men assemble, 
with nothing to do but w^ait and let loose their tongues. 
So this unkind habit belongs neither to sex nor nation- 
ality, but to humanity. It seems to be the birth mark 
of a race. Yet may we not hope that some day this 
habit may be Avrestled with and overthrown, and friend- 
ship be all that the word implies — sincerity, respect and 
unaffected regrard? 



SMILES. 



This subject has no reference to that vulgar use of 
the word when one man, who ought to be going home, 
says to another who ought to be at home, when they 
meet in front of a thirst palace, ' ' Will you have a 
smile?'' In our strange vernacular, so many words 
that have a naturally delightful significance and carry 
a pleasant impression get into the wrong place and 
indiscriminately mix all that is sweet and pleasing 
with things that repel and disgust and offend. The 
man, or more likely the woman, who first thought of 



18 PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 

hanging up cards on which were printed the words, 
'^Keep Smiling," was a philanthropist, in a way. 
Many a person who was feeling discouraged, depressed 
or dejected, has happened to glance at that simple lit- 
tle two-worded injunction and been helped by it. 
Strange, is it not, that just a certain arrangement of 
our features will bring pleasure or even joy to another, 
and actually change the feelings in one^s own mind? Bui 
a smile will do it. A frown has no particular effect on 
anyone. It is passed unnoticed and nobody cares if 
anybody frowns, but let them smile ! There is nothing 
more beautiful in this world than a woman^s smile — 
not the simple, simpering facial contortion which mor- 
tifies you to be in the presence of; nor the meaningless 
slit across the face, which has as little expression as a 
pan of lard, nor that sarcastic leer that makes you 
want to swing a big stick against it^ but just a real, a 
natural, a pleasant smile. A man w^ho has any red 
blood in him, any emotion, any sense of things enticing, 
can be lured, without expostulation, by a pretty smile, 
to put down the carpet, or put up a stove. Just what 
there is about it that is so alluring and magnetic, is 
hard to say, but the bewitching influence of a woman's 
smile has been one of the big things in the world ever 
since she knew how to use it, and that knowledge prob- 
ably came with the first breath the first woman ever 
drew. If we are to believe history — and we all do, of 
course — especially those of us who realize the power of 
this little facial wizard, we can recall how governments 
have tottered, countries have changed boundaries, na- 
tions have warred with one another because a woman 
smiled. The men who were slaves to the enchantment 



PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 19 

of it were not small men, either, not vacillating, in- 
sipid, spiritless men, but the intrepid, dauntless, clever, 
gifted men, those who have been foremost in every 
department of life, who have wrought events, and Avith- 
out whom there would be no vivid nor momentous his- 
tory; no tremendous movements which have rocked 
Christendom, changed empires, founded new worlds. 

A woman can accomplish what she wants much more 
easily with her lips than with her tongue. She can 
drive a man out of the house, to drink, to desperation, 
with a reckless use of her tongue. She can talk a man 
out of a thing, or she can smile him into it. It some- 
times seems as though a man were started in the world 
with a paucity of assets to do business with, but his lia- 
bilities have always been appalling. A woman seems 
to have been bequeathed all the graces, and a man the 
disgraces, though in these days, we frequently find 
woman trespassing on man's preserves. Whatever it 
is that influences a woman to do what a man wants her 
to, if she ever does, it is not his smile. His face is not 
of the right architecture to produce the result, or he 
cannot arrange it effectually; neither by the wildest 
stretch of imagination, could the term beautiful be ap- 
plied to it. This smile of which feminine creation is 
master, is not the smile that goes with conversation, the 
laughing concomitant or condiment that accompanies 
a vivacious style in talk, but that look she gives, or can 
give, when there is no converse, but just silence. When 
she looks at you and smiles, then, if there is anything 
about you that is chivalrous, or responsive, or ardent. 
or susceptible, if you have any real manhood in you, 
that is the moment of unconditional surrender; and if 



20 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 

she smiles again, you surrender again still more ab~ 
jectly. It is fortunate for mankind that the average 
woman does not know the value of a real smile, or she 
would have man under subjection all the time. It is 
fortunate that she considers her tongue her best wea- 
pon, as a man can come back at her then, and get as 
near even as he can, which is far short of even, for he 
has a tongue if he is defective in smiles. 

But the smile that is meant in this random excursion 
is not one that can be put on at any time, like an out- 
side garment, that may cover a patch, a darn or a rent 
in an inside garment. It must be genuine. It must be 
the art glass that the sweet and benign spirit shines 
through. It is really but the reflection of what is being 
felt within, but it will reflect only what is friendly, 
gentle, genial. A smile will not be the agent of a bit- 
ter, unkind, or even indifferent thought. Perhaps that 
is the reason why it is so beautiful, and why it can ac- 
complish so much; why it is the most bewitching in- 
strument that has been given to one division of the hu- 
man race. But whenever worn, whether by children, 
by persons in mid life, or those frosted by age, the smil- 
ing face is a benediction. No person can recall an in- 
stance in all their lives, when they have been saddened, 
shocked, or made dispirited by a smile, but most of us 
can recall some instance or instances when we have 
been helped by one, been brightened, or received some 
inspiration. So, if to some of us is not given the privi- 
lege to wear a smile that is beautiful, we may put on a 
cheery one, in the hope that our reflection may touch 
someone else, to be passed on, like the endless chain of 



FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 21 

letters which was once so popular. That is not a bad 
motto to keep before ns — ^'Keep Smiling." 



GRAFT. 



Back in the halycon days of our boyhood, grafting 
was a simple process. It was done out in the open and 
anyone who wanted to witness the operation was per- 
mitted to do so unopposed. A man came into the or- 
chard, sawed off a limb or two, split them down a little 
ways, inserted a sprig into the opening, put some thick- 
salvey stuff around it and went away. In a few sea- 
sons, spitzenburgs and baldwins, snow apples and 
brother Jonathans, russetts and Canada reds were grow- 
ing harmoniously and picturesquely together on the 
same trees. So when Noah Webster said, ^^ Grafting is 
the act or process of inserting grafts," he knew what 
he was talking about. When he said a grafter is ' ' One 
who inserts scions on other stocks or propagates fruit 
by ingrafting/ ^ his definition was correct. Naturally 
we are led to see what this ''scion" is that is ''insert- 
ed." It proves to be a "shoot, a sprout of a plant, a 
sucker. ' ' Now there it is. A grafter, in other words, is 
one who inserts a sucker into another's preserves. This 
sucker is not the fish that we boys used to spear down 
in the river, just when the ice went out in the 
spring; the fellow that had his myriad of bones all 
done up in bundles and that didn't have even energy 
enough to squirm when you jabbed the spear into him, 
nor is it that big, flat, mucilaginous gob of glucose 
gummed onto the end of a little round stick — that ' ' all 



22 FKOM HEEE AND THEEE 

day sucker" of those rapturous days of long ago, nor 
is it that gold brick and green goods rube, nor the chap 
who so guilelessly separates himself from his coin in 
his eagerness to get in on the ground floor, or to be a 
charter member in the get-rich-quick society, or jumps 
at the alluring bait labeled *^ something good." The 
sucker of the grafting process is just simply the thing 
that sucks. The grafter is not the sucker — only when 
he gets caught. What we call graft is no new process. 
It began when the human race began. Jacob was the 
first artistic grafter of the B. C. period. He grafted 
Esau's inheritance onto his own. Jacob was the grafter, 
Esau the sucker. So on through all succeeding ages, 
what has become known as graft in our rapidly in- 
creasing vocabulary, was carried on, until it seemed to 
have found, in our own beloved America, its most fer- 
tile field for operation. It seemed to come with that in- 
creasing desire to have things, to be in the tide of af- 
fairs, among the mighty and the wealthy. Money, a 
desire for which is the father of the graft system, did 
not use to be the absolutely controlling power that it 
is today. When our forefathers left the royalty ridden 
land of their birth, it was not love of money that lured 
them, but a higher quality, one little regarded in these 
more advanced days of our civilization — the love of lib- 
erty, freedom of thought, untrammeled action. Today, 
there are no great movements inspired by lofty motives. 
Every struggle is commercial — for more money. The 
working man strikes, for what? more money. The cor- 
poration expands, enlarges, reaches out among the peo- 
ple, for philanthopy? No, more money. Churches call 
constantly from attendants for more sanctity, more 



FROM HEBE AXD THEEE 23 

charity, more Galilean religion? No, more money to 
erect a building that will outstrip its rival and buy a 
higher priced minister. The business man hurries from 
his house the minute the morning meal is pitched down, 
and he lunches at the club. He has no time for any- 
thing but to make more money. The old home life, as 
we once called it, the family association, the games and 
enjoyments have become obsolete. The slight acquain- 
tance the average business man has with his own family 
is scarce worth mentioning. Everything has resolved 
itself into a struggle for more money, and it is not to 
be wondered at that out of this condition has arisen 
the system of graft which has permeated every avenue 
and reached into every corner of our governmental sys- 
tem. We need not be surprised at it, nor horrified at 
it, as we seem to be, when we read of some grafter who 
has worked the sucker a little too diligently or become 
a little too avaricious, and has been snared by some well 
set traps, temptingly baited, and is now on his way to a 
long season in the penitentiary. Graft is the natural 
product of our frenzy to get rich. This spirit has be- 
come a veritable, gluttonous monster, that stifles all our 
better qualities, higher instincts, safer environments. 
Under the reign of this spirit of acquisition, we all are 
a species of grafters. The work of some is more coarse 
than that of others, but is all the same breed. The 
something for nothing microbe is the real originator of 
it all. We are led to wonder where the spirit of com- 
mercialism will lead us ; what sort of people we will be 
three generations hence. Literally we will, quite likely, 
.be up in a balloon, ''all among the little stars floating 
'round the moon," for genius is bound to solve the 



24 FEOM HEEE AND THERE 

aerial problem; we may be up there financially, too. 
We make those ascensions now and then, but some day 
may go so high that we will be seriously disjointed 
when we come back. Graft is not a safe atmosphere to 
sail in, and we are likely to lose our equilibrium. 

We are inclined to wear a supercilious smile when we 
hear anyone mention ^'The simple life." Everything, 
now, must be done in an exaggerated and inflated way, 
and there is no such thing as contentment in the rest- 
less, eager, frenzied manner in which we live. All this 
leads us to make our watchword, ^^Q-et money honestly 
if you can, but get money. ' ' Everything is put on the 
market and sold like a commodity in commerce. In- 
fluence, position, prestige, power, have become as com- 
mon articles of purchase as any staple article of com- 
merce that goes over the counter in trade. Food is not 
the only thing that is being adulterated, and there is 
as much need of an inspector of character as there is of 
an inspector of food. We can legislate some of the 
ghostly adulterations out of what we eat and drink, by 
the passage of pure food laws, but we cannot legislate 
the ghastly chicanery out of our moral system by any 
act of the Legislature. We can punish the man who 
gets caught with the goods on him, and send him to 
jail, but grafting is not intended to be a public per- 
formance in this age, and will flourish, unchecked, un- 
til a new spirit is instilled into the lives and hearts of 
the American people — that spirit which sees something 
more in life than the mere accumulation of wealth, and 
the lavish display of it. More of home atmosphere, 
more of the spirit of contentment in the reasonable 
things of life ; more enjoyment of the beautiful things 



FROM HEEE AND THEEE 25 

all about us, and less desire for the tawdry pleasures, 
and costly possessions, would bring us back to sane and 
happy living; out of the brain storms, the dementia 
Americana, the paranoics, the hysterics, the suicides, 
and be far more efScacious than the passage of laws or 
infliction of penalties. 



THE AGEICULTURAL INSTINCT. 

Everyone, almost, seems to have hidden somewhere 
in his structure an unappeasible desire to ^^get back to 
the soil." Not the dust to dust condition — ^very few of 
us have any inordinate longing for that, but to most of 
us comes sometime in life a persistent craving to 
monkey with the soil, to manipulate it, to tickle it, and 
then watch it do things. 

The supernatural always appeals to us. We feel 
queer sensations of mingled incredulity and acquies- 
cence, in strange and unfathomed power, when we see 
the prestidigitator calmly lift a live rabbit out from 
the shirt front of the man sitting next to us in the par- 
quet, but when we see that tiny green sprout just peek- 
ing up at the sunlight from the ordinary looking 
ground from which it springs, and we know that it 
comes from the seed which we planted a few days ago, 
even though it is the most familiar result in the ma- 
terial world, a sort of awe takes possession of us, and 
we recognize that here is no slight of hand work, no 
befoozling mummery, but that we are in the presence 
of a great natural phenomenon, and that only Divinity 
could have conceived or perfected it. There is really 



26 FEOM HEEE AND THERE 

no more fascinating thing in the universe than to be 
the possessor of a garden. It has its drawbacks, of 
course; its disappointments, its aggravations that seem 
only to be alleviated by lurid profanity at those pes- 
tiferous, persistent buglets, the existence of which is a 
conundrum, while the destruction which they occasion 
is both dumfounding and dispiriting. The garden has 
lured many a writer to put his sensations experienced 
by a summer's gardening before the world, but few of 
us are influenced by the experience of others, and the 
garden annually snares its usual number of easy marks, 
who feel that they can achieve success where others 
have achieved only humiliation. 

It looks like a simple operation for a full grown hu- 
man being, possessed of an average intellect, with shin- 
gles, solutions and poisons at his disposal, to cope with 
a few tiny bugs that are simply on his premises in ac- 
cordance with natural instinct, to eat up the products 
of his labor, as soon as it becomes edible. But you just 
engage once in a battle with bugdom, and see what hap- 
pens to you. It is the most exasperating, futile, morti- 
fying, infuriating, gloomy struggle in which a poor, 
helpless individual can become involved. The unequal 
contest rages all summer, and when one set of bugs has 
passed on, another set of bugs arrives to continue the 
withering devastation. One set eats the tender green 
leaves, another set the blossoms, another set the fruit, 
and it is probable that if there were anything else to eat, 
there would be another set to eat it. You sift poisons 
on the vines till they are brown or white with it, but 
the bugs don't care. They crawl onto the under side 
of the leaves and proceed tantalizingly with their de- 



FEOM HERE AND THERE 27 

struction. You poison the under side, and, undaunted, 
they eat the poison. Nothing feazes them. They are 
immune. 

No person who has ever possessed a garden, has 
failed to meet with a certain small voracious bug, hav- 
ing yellow and black striped wings, and which is more 
wily than you are. That you are acquainted with it, 
I see by the pained smile on your face. Well, this 
damnable creation is the most unprincipled, graceless, 
contemptible, pucillanimous production in all bugology. 
He has 3^ou buffaloed at every angle of the proceedings, 
and if you do have a few melon or cucumber vines 
which bear fruit at the end of the struggle, it can only 
be because his capacity was unequal to his voracity. 

Then one would sometimes dream of Hubbard squash 
in the cellar for winter delights, and the dream could 
be realized, too, were it not for that triangular shaped, 
dirty looking object, familiarly known and properly 
named, '^ Stink Bug.'' 

These two destroyers always seem the most pestilen- 
tial specimens among garden freebooters. The cut 
worm, tomato worm, cabbage grub, potato bug, all ex- 
cite one's animosity, but the little chap that wears the 
black and yellow stripes, always seems to wear out pa- 
tience, and exhaust even a Websterian vocabulary to 
properly anathematize him. 

Yet with all these omnipresent and desolating sum- 
mer enemies; in spite of all the weeds that thrive and 
spread and delve into the earth's very center, and 
laugh, apparently, as you yank them out vindictively, 
and turn their roots up to the burning summer sun, you 
will be planning another garden next year as soon as 



28 FEOM HEEE AJ^D THEEE 

the brilliant colored catalogues are out. What though 
you did not supply the table from the garden, as you 
valiantly announced in the spring you would do? you 
had the fun of thinking that you would and sometimes 
our dreams exceed the pleasure of the reality. You 
had good exercise; you had really great sport in the 
fun of getting back to the soil, and you had your 
dreams. If the melons, which in the spring time looked 
round, plump and juicy in imagination, were eaten by 
the bugs or plugged by vandal boys — you remember 
when you plugged melons, don't you? — those dream 
melons made your mouth water as you planted the 
seeds in the spring. It was not, then, a failure after 
all. You did really gather some fruits and roots of it 
and enjoyed them as much as you anticipated. 

"What stuff the bugs left you had. It was fresh from 
your garden, and you picked it or dug it yourself, and 
it gave you a chance to cast scornful glances at the 
withered truck in the grocery store which those who 
had no garden were compelled to content themselves 
with, and your nose tipped at a forty-five degree angle 
at the bare thought of canned goods. So even with en- 
thusiasm a little tempered by affliction, you really did 
enjoy what you blithely announced, in the spring, you 
were going to enjoy. In spite of weeds and worms, 
bugs and blisters, some mortification and much virtu- 
ous wrath, it is worth while to have a garden, and once 
a year, for a little time, get back to the soil. 



PEOM HERE AND THERE 29 

CUSTOMS. 

Customs of nations are most interesting and in most 
particulars valuable. They are the outgrowth of some 
big national event, usually, and are based on some 
pretty sentiment. The suggestion of a brief review of 
some national fetes came through the observance of 
some Indian usages, in comparison with those of our 
own nation, brought out by mingling with these native 
children, who have brought down for centuries these 
feast days and observances. Like ours they are senti- 
mental, the outgrowth of patriotic ebullition, or they 
touch most sweetly our recognition of Divine supervi- 
sion, and a thankfulness for cur bounties. "We do not 
include Christmas in this simple review, for that is a 
world-wide institution, the most beautiful, the most sa- 
cred, the most delightful of all. The word itself is full 
of memories, so dear, so fragrant, so enchanting, so rev- 
erential, that it stands alone among the world's observ- 
ances. No one with any sentiment can hear that word 
Christmas, and not feel a softening of the heart. It is 
so full of tenderness, of sweetness, of reminiscence, of 
sanctity. It is a holy day. 

We love our Thanksgiving, and with the good cheer 
of it, and its blessed reunion of friends, its fullness of 
warmth and hospitality; it is the outgrowth of a spirit 
which has made us such a nation as we have grown to 
be. It is quiet and restful and partakes naught of the 
hilarity, the noise, the pride and elation of the day of 
our national birth. Fourth of July is America's great 
day, and we let loose all of the pent-up enthusiasm of 



30 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 

three hundred and sixty-four days. We revel in boast- 
fulness and thunder our patriotism. It is an outward 
show. Thus, too, do the natives, these children of the 
West, express their recognition of their Deities, and 
celebrate their feast days. The Indian is, as a rule, a 
sun worshiper, though he adopts a religion, Catholic 
usually, yet back of it all, down in his heart, the orb 
that gives him light and heat and brightness is an estab- 
lished and unforgotten Deity. The Pueblo Indian cus- 
toms give substance for this little mention of native ob- 
servances, and they are well worth mention. Their 
first celebration is a com dance, which is given in three 
seasons. First, when the corn appears, and its tiny 
green shoots give promise of the future, a certain num- 
ber of children of the village chosen by authority give 
a dance in the center of the settlement, gayly arrayed 
and fancifully painted, chanting as they dance to the 
wierd music of their native instruments. Then when 
the corn is in the silk, the next generation, young men 
and maidens hold the stage and the scenes of the first 
dance are repeated, only with still more noise and en- 
thusiasm. The tom toms roar and the dancers, arrayed 
in gayest of colors, shout and chant and sing as they 
move about the plaza. Again when the corn ripens the 
old people of the Pueblos don the spangles and bright 
colors and the paint, shouting their thanks for the ri- 
pened harvest, and showing by this outward expression 
the joy felt in the fruitfulness of their labors. 

The three celebrations are really those of Thanksgiv- 
ing. They recognize the power of the Sun God. They 
feel his goodness, they acknowledge the weariness he 
must feel in traveling daily his long course, in bringing 



FROM HERE AND THERE 31 

to fruition the grain which is their sustenance, and they 
would cheer him by their gay dances, and thank him 
with their songs. It is a pretty custom, and abounds 
with a genuine sentiment which touches all observers. 
Then comes, on September thirtieth of each year, San 
Geronimo day. It is the day given to a saint and dates 
back to the sixteenth century. 

In 1598, a Spanish priest left the little settlement of 
San Gabriel, on the west bank of the Rio Grande, where 
the Chance river flows into it, and came to the Taos 
Pueblo to establish a mission. He chose, as their patron 
saint, Jerome, whose day falls on the thirtieth of Sep- 
tember each year, and from that time down to the pres- 
ent date this feast has been annually observed that 
day. The famous relay race, which is one of the big 
features of the celebration, originated purely as an In- 
dian custom, and, previous to the institution of Saint's 
day, it was held on the day of assuming office by the 
Alcalde of the Pueblos. It was originally used as a mar- 
riage sacrament. When a new Alcalde assumed office 
he would select an equal number of unmarried men and 
women, placing the men together at one end of the 
track and the women at the other. At a given signal 
the men all rushed to the end of the track where the 
women were congregated, and whichever woman a run- 
ner reached first, that one was his wife. The race was 
to the swift, and the fleetest runner had his pick from 
the waiting women for his bride. The last to arrive 
at the goal had to be content with what was left. The 
famous relay race has since become a method of choos- 
ing a new Alcalde^ the victors of the race being those 
from among whom the candidates were chosen. There 



32 PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 

is nothing about the San Geronimo celebration that is 
more attractive and more delightful to visitors and to 
Pueblos than the hours devoted to the sports of the 
Chiffonettes, made far-famed by Bandolier, in his 
dainty story, and by him named the '^Delight Mak- 
ers." This title of Chiffonettes, as translated from the 
native to the English tongue, means Indian Clowns, and 
well does the title fit, as the mirthful gambols of the 
gayly bedecked and fancifully painted performers call 
to mind the jolly clown of the pantomime, and him of 
the old day circus ring. The Chiffonettes really give 
the most enjoyable performance of this famous San 
Geronimo celebration. The Chiffonettes are born of le- 
gend like all the ceremonies of this gala day. Many 
centuries ago a severe tribulation swept over the land. 
It was an hour of pestilence and darkness and famine. 
Crops withered and failed ; the glories of the field were 
dimmed and the flowers that brightened and made 
happy no longer bloomed. The tribes were disheart- 
ened, afflicted and without hope, but the Trues, sym- 
pathizing with their distresses, sent into their midst a 
gay band of troubadours who entered the Pueblo, and 
with their comical antics, their jest and joyousness, 
lifted the cloud of sorrow and hopelessness which had 
enthralled the people, and led them to forget their hun- 
ger and weariness and take heart again, till the sun 
warmed the ground once more, the earth blossomed, and 
grain took on its golden tint and fruit its ripened 
beauty. Prom this legend come the present day Chif- 
fonettes who carry out the idea by appearing, painted 
in horizontal stripes of light and dark clay, to repre- 
sent these two periods of darkness and of light. They 



EROM HEEE AND THERE 33 

always wear a bunch of dried grass in the hair, sym- 
bolic of the withered and dead crops. 

The Kive of the Chiffonettes is situated within the 
walls of the town near the northeast corner of the south 
Pyramid. The principal ceremony takes place in the 
afternoon of the thirtieth of September, when a large 
pole is erected on the bank of the river, from which is 
suspended a live sheep, and an abundance of fruit, vege- 
tables and bread. The Delight Makers go through their 
laughable antics over the Pueblo, until they discover 
the tracks of the sheep, apparently leading to the pole. 
After a short while, amid much gay frolic, they dis- 
cover the sheep at the top of the pole. After many 
ridiculous attempts to reach the top, about forty feet 
from the ground, one clown succeeds in reaching the 
sheep, which he lowers to the ground together with the 
other favors with which the pole is bedecked, and a 
grand feast follows amid a jovial merry-making in 
which all Pueblo joins. This closes the particular cere- 
monies of the Chiffonettes or Delight Makers. 

Thus all nations and all people are the observers of 
customs, and nearly all of these are in recognition of 
some event touching our material fortunes, and in rec- 
ognition of some act of the Deity. If we can hold our 
customs on a high plane, and in recognition of our best 
endeavors and the things that are truest and holiest, 
they are well worthy to be continued. 



SLIPPERS. 

Away back, when I graduated from the town high 
school, at the close of my delivery of an immortal ora- 



34 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 

tion, flashing with eloquent suggestions and stupendous 
thoughts, which seemed to have sunk into sad oblivion, 
immediately after their impassioned presentation, I re- 
ceived the customary abundance of beautiful flowers 
with card attachments. Among them was a charming 
bouquet of lady slippers, and the little card attached, 
read: '^To an admirer of the same." I remember I 
kept them as long as their dainty, evanescent beauty 
lasted, and for many months afterward. I knew ex- 
actly where they came from — ^in that boggy land a mile 
and a half west of town, just across the road from the 
spring. They grew in that little patch of wood there, 
where the shade was so dense and cool in the summer; 
where only here and there a shaft of sunlight ever 
penetrated; where only such exquisite things as a lady 
slipper would grow. 

Just where this flower received its name, I have 
oftened wondered, and yet the name always seemed ap- 
propriate, too. Perhaps their prettiness and daintiness 
inspired the name. It must have been first bestowed by 
someone who truly knows what shapeliness, beauty and 
refinement really is. To me a show window of a shoe 
dealer is more attractive than that of a jeweler. I don't 
mean that window where are arranged those great, big, 
box-shaped things, ranging in size from seven to eleven, 
looking fit to be used for a flat boat or a raft, but the 
window on the other side of the door where you see 
those elegant, refined little specimens of leather and 
kid architecture, in colors of black, pink, blue, gray, 
white, and in ox bloods, tans and russets. They really 
vv^ear them, too, though it seems almost incredible, for 
that tale of Cinderella was only a fairy story. I am 



PEOM HEEE AJTD THEEE 35 

snre even she would have to pinch her foot to get it 
into that little bit of a slipper over there in the left- 
hand comer, the one all embroidered so beautifully and 
having a satin heel. I don't know how you feel, but a 
lady's slipper, I mean the pretty, genteel, dainty one, 
has a wonderful fascination for me. It makes me feel 
just the same as does that skittish little swish of her 
petticoat. It gives me a sort of bewildered feeling of 
all-overishness, and has an air of bewitchery about it. 
Every woman knows that a pretty slipper is a capti- 
vating possession. That 's why she lets it just peep tan- 
talizingly out from under her dress sometimes. She 
knows you think it prettier than the rings she has on 
or the brooch she wears, and she likes to tease you by 
just that tiny bit she pushes in front of the curtain. I 
have seen times in my life, though, when slippers ap- 
pealed to me in another way and caused other sensa- 
tions — lady slippers, too, they were. This was long 
ago — ^back before I gave to the world that deathless ora- 
tion, that one I harbored the delusion would be death- 
less, but I guess it died in the dreary hours of the same 
night; anyway, the editor seemed to think it dead 
when he delivered his paltry eulogy on it in his next 
issue. He spoke of it in the past tense and used the 
same adjective describing it that he used on all the 
other orations delivered on that memorable occasion, so 
I guess it died. Well, way back before it died, my re- 
lations with slippers were of a different kind than those 
I have been describing, and my sensations were differ- 
ent. They were bewildering but not bewitching. The 
slippers of those days were associated with scenes that 
belong only to childhood. They belong to days when 



36 PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 

for some unhallowed deed, some thoughtless act of diso- 
bedience, some reckless bit of bold impudence let loose, 
I was ordered to go to a certain well-known room and 
^ wait. When the inquisitor entered I knew at once just 
how heinous my offense had> been. If she had in her 
hand a lady's slipper, I knew there was to be only a 
lesson in palmistry, and I was to receive on my hand a 
stinging reminder of the fact that I was still under pa- 
rental law; if she had one of those slippers on which 
was embroidered a bunch of cherries, in raised figures, 
or one worked in fancy patterns of gay-colored worsted, 
I knew there was going to be some warm and energetic 
industry applied to my framework; but if she had one 
of those big, flat-bottomed, slab-sided carpet slippers, 
with the flaps fastened together with copper rivets, I 
knew there was going to be a tragedy, and that my 
chair at the table would have a cushion on it for the 
next day or two. How I sighed for a pair of double- 
seated leather breeches for the next five minutes. Yet 
I knew they would be useless, for the outrage about to 
be perpetrated, would be in the altogether. Were you 
ever stung by a carpet slipper? If so, why attempt to 
describe the blistering misery of it? If not, may you 
never be. 

How the years, as they pass, change our view of 
things, and how we forget those events of our child- 
hood, which seemed of such moment then. What ap- 
pealed to us then as only flagrant injustice was, in 
reality, a blessing. It was well disguised, to be sure, 
but a blessing none the less. Now after the years have 
placed me on a different height, and the view unfolds 
from a different standpoint, I can see things from a 



FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 37 

less abnormal view. Now, a lady's slipper seems only a 
thing of beauty — dainty, charming, fascinating; the 
old-fashioned embroidered slipper, when it occasionally 
comes into view from out of that past in which it flour- 
ished, awakens no animosity, and even the ancient car- 
pet slipper, which, thank goodness, is now but a relic, 
I can look upon with equanimity. 



THE KINDERGARTEN. 

Just what relationship exists between the Peace Con- 
gress and the Kindergarten may not be easily deter- 
mined, but there must be one somewhere. Inasmuch 
as the kindergarten came first, it must be the promoter, 
the ancestor, or progenitor, or something of that kind, 
or possibly the grandmother. At any rate, if not ac- 
tually blood relatives, they are akin in belief and theorj'- 
— they are both opposed to war. If the kindergarten 
is responsible for the peace spirit that seems to have 
been instilled into the heart of nations, it ought to have 
a niche in the halls of fame, for peace is a delightful 
attribute, and brings about a most tranquilizing condi- 
tion. It is desirable universally, nationally, individu- 
ally, and is doubtless one of the harbingers of a new 
alignment of affairs. There may have been nothing sug- 
gestive, ironical, artful, in the fact that during the 
meeting of the first "World's Peace Congress of Na- 
tions, every government in the world, of any impor- 
tance, was making faces at some other government, 
building bigger, better battleships, while America was 
preparing that neat little object lesson — sending a fleet 



38 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 

of magnificent war vessels on its cruise around the 
world. The Dove of Peace is a beautiful bird, in pic- 
tures, but the war eagie is not yet an extinct species, 
and has not yet ceased to excite admiration. The sweet 
spirit of peace that rules the kindergarten^ — this has no 
reference to the teacher, though in many cases the term 
is not inappropriate — may give us a generation of peo- 
ple far in advance of the present in loveliness and calm- 
ness, and gentleness. Those of us who have quivered 
and writhed under a rude and unbridled application of 
the back of a hair brush upon our undraped anatomy, 
or felt the biting sting of a horsewhip on our unsea- 
soned little legs, can scarcely imagine into what sort of 
an individual a child will eventually emerge, who has 
never had a chance to let passion and angry hatred pos- 
sess his soul, and fill his very body as he is released, 
sore and excoriated from the contact with these base 
instruments of chastisement; or how a child must feel 
who has never had the harrowing pleasure of planning 
an escape from such humiliating thralldom and brutal 
treatment, and of going out into the great world alone, 
to conquer or die, if need be, thus bringing to those 
left behind an eternal regret for their unrestrained and 
inhuman action. 

Nothing in the world quite equals that exquisite 
wretchedness a child feels in dreaming of the unap- 
peased woe that will reign in the house, from which he 
has gone forth, alone, driven hence by the soulless treat- 
ment administered in a spirit of ^^ sorrow and love but 
for your own good/' The youngster, who, under the 
kindly administrations taught by the kindergarten, has 
missed the smarting, blistering sensations of parental 



FEOM HEBE A^^D THEEE 39 

corporal correction, and never felt the sweet sorrow of 
contemplated revenge, has lost a lot in life, and cannot 
sound all the depths of human nature as can those who 
have been under the lash. It is difficult to imagine a 
childhood passed without hearing, ^' Don't do that," 
''You mustn't,'' ''If you do that again, I shall punish 
you, ' ' and so many restrictive admonishings which seem 
so constant and unsympathizing, then, but so salutary 
and necessary from the standpoint of later years. 
When you staggered around among blue, red, and yel- 
low stars that danced before you, those times when the 
teacher banged you over the head with that artistic, 
full-armed swing, while the amazed and frightened 
school sat silent, you thought, if you were not too dazed 
to think, that she was the meanest thing you ever saw; 
when she yanked you out from that old green-topped 
desk, and dragged you squirming down the aisle, to 
show you to the school as the awful example, and shook 
you till your teeth felt loose and all the internal organs 
of your body seemed mussed up and out of place, and 
anyway, your heart was hitting your budding Adam's 
apple — then you thought her the ugliest, most violent, 
unchristian old maid — that was the most utterly with- 
ering word in your vocabulary then — that ever lived; 
when she unhanded you and said in that tone you just 
hated, "Now take your seat," you felt murderous to- 
ward her, but you had received sufficient for the pres- 
ent, and walked foggily back and wriggled into your 
seat, to sit there sulky, befuddled, indignant, planning 
some dire revenge in the years to come. But the years 
have come and gone, and as you look back at those days 
when you must have been a veritable nuisance and pest, 



40 PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 

she comes back to you through the mist and haze, not 
as a dragon, but as a friend ; not as one who would hurt, 
but help. You only wonder now how she could have 
been so patient with you, and you recall how, when at 
last, she said goodbye to you, she kissed your forehead 
and admonished you to grow up good. Where is she 
now, you wonder. You would like to tell her you be- 
lieved that her methods were the right ones, and that 
you believe that she shook some of the eussedness out 
of you and slapped some good in. 

The impressions that come to us forcibly are the ones 
that linger, the salient things in life, and it is yet a 
question to be solved if it is not necessary to inaugurate 
or retain some forceful methods of old days, when im- 
pressions were made lasting through the medium of 
that old schoolroom ferule or that never-to-be-forgotten 
strap which the professor laid so tellingly over your 
anatomy. It seems as if a child would grow tired of the 
gentleness that so permeates the atmosphere of the kin- 
dergarten room, and would be driven, from sheer con- 
trariness, which is an ingredient of human nature, to 
be wicked; or sometimes later this quality would crop 
out and there would be let loose the pent-up instincts 
that had been so long imprisoned. It seems as if one 
would tire of being always led, and would want to see 
how it would seem to be driven. Perhaps children get 
so imbued, however, with the spirit of gentleness that 
the baser qualities are forever smothered. Those of us who 
ceased abruptly doing what we wanted to, at '*Stop 
that this instant,'' or gave up some settled determina- 
tion when it had been flogged out of us, rather cling to 
the old-fashioned notion that force is sometimes neces- 



PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 41 

sary to bring results. Possibly the next generation, 
graduates of the sweet and gentle methods of the kin- 
dergarten, may prove that we are wrong, but we still 
assert that those things taught or untaught us by those 
harsh instruments of persuasion were the things that 
impressed us most. 



COLORS. 

Eugene Field, in one of his whimsical rhymes, says : 

^^Any color, as long as ifs red, 
Is the color that suits me best.^^ 

We are led to wonder just what is the nature of that 
particular influence that makes any one color a favor- 
ite over all others, and in what specific part of our 
anatomy is located the pleasurable sensation that we 
feel over one certain shade or tint. Is it wholly in our 
eye, or does it strike some sensitive chord or nerve or 
disc in our delicate and labyrinthine architecture? Are 
we born with a fancy for some certain color, hidden 
away somewhere in the tiny and tortuous brain cells; 
does the enjoyment come later, from association with 
some sentiment which has seized hold on us away back 
in the hazy formation period of our existence; or does 
it come to be a joy to us on account of its environment 
at some certain time when we were especially suscepti- 
ble to its influence? 

Love of color seems as inexplicable and as arbitrary 
as* the names that are triflingly bestowed on wizened 
and helpless infants, with an inaptness that becomes 



42 FEOM HERE AND THEEE 

grotesque. How often a lily is dumpy, dark and ex- 
pansive; Violet, tall, bold and impertinent; a Daisy 
who ought to be a peony ; a Belle who developed into a 
wall flower; Grace who was as angular as the jackass 
problem in geometry; a May who chilled one like an 
Icelandic December. George Washington shaved me 
three times a week for years; I knew an Aaron Burr 
who was respectable, and a Daniel Webster who cleaned 
the streets in one of our great cities; a Napoleon who 
drew a foaming glass of beer, and passed it over to 
Henry Yvard Beecher, who drank it. There was a 
Grant who was timid as a speckled trout, and a Mozart 
who did not know a bar of music from a sand bar. It 
is unfair to fasten to a defenseless infant a name that 
may become as embarrassing and burdensome as Chris- 
tian's sin pack, which it may be compelled to carry for 
eighty years. Yet it would be hardly the wise thing to 
leave a child nameless until it could choose for itself. 
If this should become the custom, then the musical 
Mary, the sweet sounding Constance, the rhythmic Mar- 
garet would speedily disappear from our vocabulary, 
while Phyllis, Gladys, Myrtella, Evelina would reign 
supreme in the feminine world. 

Naturally one associates with a certain color, the 
general appearance of the person who admires it. I 
knew a man who is a devotee to pink. One immediately 
and instinctively pictures that man as a dapper little 
fellow, who delights in the delicate, the dainty, the gen- 
tle. He is exquisite and dandified, isn't he? But he 
isn't. He weighs two hundred and fifty pounds. He 
is practical and undemonstrative, not having a senti- 



FEOM HEEE AND THERE 43 

mental fiber in him. It seemed funny that he admired 
pink. 

So love of color is an erratic elf, sailing hither and 
thither, touching here and there in a wayward, vagrant, 
freakish way which scientist and philosopher have tried 
vainly to follow. For myself I cannot remember when 
I did not like yellow. Once, when I was a little boy in 
school, a young teacher came to teach in the old white 
school house, where we were striving with spasmodic 
endeavor to crowd our budding brain cells with rudi- 
ments of what we were told was knowledge. The first 
time I saw her she wore a yellow waist. Eleven years 
afterward I married her. Sometimes I have wondered, 
since, if I liked yellow because she wore it, or loved her 
because she wore yellow. At all events the combination 
was sufficiently attractive to establish an important ac- 
tion in life. Probably everyone has some association 
with a favorite color which is called to mind when it 
greets the eye, but investigation has failed so far to re- 
veal to us how and why some certain tint appeals to us, 
and becomes a reigning favorite in the color world. 

Our topic naturally suggests some gorgeous grouping, 
such as glows in a flower garden, offering a banquet of 
beauty to the disciple at this gay shrine. Nature has 
given us nothing in all the world that can rival the 
tint of the flower, for it has in it the touch of the In- 
finite, and we stand before it bewildered at its loveli- 
ness. Little wonder that every poet wanders to the 
fliower garden for inspiration to exalt his song, and that 
hither the artist hastens for the richest colors with 
which to anoint his brush. A riot of color we find in 
it, a luxury of tint, a daintiness of perfume, the magic 



44 PEOM HERE AND THEEE 

of which enthralls the devotee to the flower kingdom, 
and subjugates to its gentle tyranny every lover of the 
beautiful. 

We naturally and quickly associate color with our 
charming womankind^ which itself beautifies color as 
much as color can adorn it, but color has only an insignifi- 
cant part in the personal appearance of circumscribed, 
impoverished man. His only opportunity, for two- 
thirds of a century, to become identified with the color 
world, has been confined to a red necktie, or a striped 
stocking, and that, even, is debarred from social prom- 
inence. Color is the author of some of our most po- 
tent material pleasures. Sometimes we feel that our 
most delightful sensation comes 

^^When the green, you know, gets back in the trees." 

That color seems so restful then, so hopeful and full of 
promise. Maturity never quite forgets, and childhood 
ever revels in the brilliant red chariot of circus day, as 
the glittering pageant moves gaily down the village 
street; but that bright and inspiring color thrills us 
most when its ribboned bars float proudly out as the 
breeze plays merrily with '*01d Glory.'' Nature's un- 
rivaled tint in Heaven's high arch, or that matchless 
blue in the depths of our great lakes or old ocean's won- 
drous hue, fringed with its caps of white, leave us beg- 
gared of description. Even somber black becomes a 
charming color, when it forms a contrast with the white 
and rounded shoulders of beautiful womanhood, but 
with all adjectives exhausted, we stand silent in that 
room over which is cast the glow of ripe, rich, full-fla- 
vored yellow. The admirer of the beautiful stands 



FKOM HERE AND THEEE 45 

dumb before the golden sunset, or, when the placid 
waters of some inland lake reflect back that incompar- 
able tint, whose compound only nature holds the secret. 
When the fields have put off their pretty green gar- 
ments and robed themselves in brown; when radiant 
summer has yielded to dingy fall, the brightest effects 
on the landscape are the heaps of yellow com among 
the faded shocks, and the round, golden pumpkins 
bringing a vision of winter prandial joys. 

The flash of the scarlet tanager among the treetops 
challenges our admiration; we love the dusky robin 
with his auburn breast; the bunting in his gown of 
blue; we laugh at the saucy jay with his clearly 
marked dress, as he tosses his pert little topknot in 
cunning coquetry; the black- winged golden oriole is a 
very beau of birddom^ and the beautifully marked par- 
tridge looks a little king, as he struts back and forth 
along his throne, a forest log, and spreads his exquisite 
plumage. Yet all these little feathered beauties, each 
with his individual and potent charm, must bow in sub- 
mission, as into their midst flashes the quick-winged, 
dainty, yellow bird, with his bright yet modest gown 
and timid air. As children we have all stood in front 
of an overflowing store window at Christmastide, and 
as we gazed longingly at the luxuriant display spread 
out in tempting view, each has picked out some special 
thing of beauty, and pointing, ^dth ardent wish for its 
possession, has trebled: ^^I choose that.'' 

So, of all the beautiful colors which Infinity has 
spread abroad for our enjoyment, and woven into Na- 
ture's enchanting display in every department of her 
broad domain, I choose yellow. 



46 FKOM HEEE AND THEEE 

PAVEMENT PICTURES. 

My office window opens upon the main street of a lit- 
tle city situated in the lake region of northern Michi- 
gan, and this lazy summer afternoon I have been sit- 
ting, watching the busy, restless life on the thorough- 
fare below. The leaves of the Carolina poplars which 
line the street intersecting mine, half a block away, are 
twisting and shivering in the light breeze, casting an 
ever-changing and dense shade upon the heated side- 
walk. The hoarse cough of a railway locomotive, over- 
burdened vdth its load, comes to my ear from far down 
the track, and the pitiless sun, in wanton possession of 
a cloudless sky, pours down upon this helpless planet a 
scorching heat, which the intervening million of miles 
seem powerless to temper. That soft midsummer quie- 
tude has laid its touch on human and inanimate alike. 
Even the rattle of the delivery wagons on the street 
seems to partake somewhat of the general lassitude, and 
gives forth a lazy sound. The pedestrians move in an 
unambitious way. Even the cool, filmy garments vnth 
which femininity has clothed itself, while adding to the 
attractiveness of the panorama, fail to give an appear- 
ance of coolness to the parching atmosphere. What 
brings so many people out on this torrid day? Where 
are they going, what planning, what thinking? How 
many of them are contented with what they are getting 
out of life and how many are building those fragile cas- 
tles in the air whose construction is so pleasurable and 
whose destruction so sure ? 

Across the street just outside a grocery store, stands 



FEOM HEEE AND THERE 47 

a girl eating cherries from a box set out as an exhibit. 
Inside of the store the proprietor is putting up her or- 
der. I wonder if he likes to have her eat his cherries? 
She looks bewitching in her summer apparel, but that 
does not, in any way, lessen the destructive effect she is 
producing on the profits of that cherry box. She might 
make some reparation for the loss she has occasioned 
the grocer, by telling her friends she may chance to 
meet that the corner grocery has delicious cherries. But 
she will not do that. She will take her bundle when 
it is ready and hasten away, forgetting the despoiled 
grocer and his vanished profits, while the taste of the 
toothsome cherries lingers with her, and she will gos- 
sip with the first friend she meets on some topic quite 
foreign to fruit or corner groceries. She has taken 
her purchase now and departed, and a man has taken 
her place at the cherry box. He ought to know better. 
A man understands more fully than a woman what a 
racking struggle it is to keep the balance on the right 
side of the ledger, and how diminutive are the profits 
for most of us in every undertaking in life. 

The man just passing on the opposite side is a saloon 
keeper. He has been successful in life, as the world 
measures success, from the financial standpoint. To all 
outward appearances he is contented and happy. Per- 
haps inwardly he is, too. It does seem, though, as if 
the nightmares would kick out of life all the pleasure 
he might accumulate. I wonder if the saloon keeper 
believes in anything beyond this existence. It would 
be mighty interesting to know, but maybe he would 
consider that a personal matter, and none of my busi- 
ness. A little while ago a poor wretch became drunk 



48 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 

in a saloon, and growing boisterous, the proprietor, 
fearing his place might not be considered respectable, 
called upon an officer to arrest the offender and take 
him to jail. The next morning the culprit was taken 
up into the police court and ordered to pay a fine for 
his indiscretion, or go back to jail. This seems like an 
inconsistency of life, or government. Of course the sa- 
loon keeper has been licensed to make men drunk, but 
then we are called upon to pay for police protection and 
for the trial and conviction of men who are made crim- 
inals by this institution. Queer condition of affairs. I 
wonder how infinite wisdom would regulate this busi- 
ness. 

That man just being driven by, looking so wan and 
deathlike, can only live a little while. He is stricken 
with a fatal malady. No one can possibly know the 
thoughts of one in his position. To meet death sudden- 
ly, or face it for a brief time only seems less terrible, 
but to sit and wait, watching its slow approach, its 
daunting presence following one as the eyes of a por- 
trait on the wall, that must be an appalling situation. 
Of what is that poor fellow thinking? Does he see a 
ray of sunshine as he looks into the uncertainty before 
him, or are the hours heavy with forebodings of that 
which is coming so surely and so soon? Does he look 
with dread at that closed door, presently to be opened 
to him, solving the great mystery, or from every form 
of nature does he gleam a hope of immortality? To us 
who are breathing every day the hope of more tomor- 
rows, these thoughts come but vaguely. On the edge 
of the grave what are they? Life, as we know it, even 
with its trials, its struggles, its anguish, is after all a 



FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 49 

beautiful thing. The shadows could not appear were 
there no sunshine, and while every mortal feels that life 
is far from satisfying, yet we shrink from leaving it. 
All the promises of brighter, more glorious things be- 
yond it, do not wean us from it and we struggle piti- 
fully to stay. We may theorize as to the future, but 
that is futile. We can only bide our time. 

A man and a cow have just appeared in the picture. 
They seem to be at variance over something. Perhaps 
as to which way they should go, or the speed at which 
they should travel. They are at each end of a rope, but 
the controlling spirit is the brute, as is often true in life. 
Just now the pair passed my window, and the man was 
telling the cow in unseemly language, between jerks, 
what he was going to do to her, but he did not do it, for 
at that moment he was interrupted, and he struck the 
road with the noise of a hod of brick falling from a 
skyscraper. The cow heard him and stopped to see 
what had happened. A look of pity came over her as 
she saw the dazed condition of the dusty, bedraggled 
bit of humanity, but when she saw he was still holding 
his end of the rope, the fire lit up her eye again. She 
lowered her horns, whisked her tail viciously, like a 
witch's broom sweeping cobwebs, and made a sudden 
and effectual movement. The man went into the air, 
and hastily descended with force enough to dent the 
pavement. Why don't the fool let go. That last ascen- 
sion has satisfied his ambition, and with the whole rope 
to herself, amid the jeering shouts from crowds gath- 
ered along the sidewalk, she is careering down the 
street, her heels cutting fancy figures in the atmosphere, 
like the broken arms of a windmill in a hurricane. The 



50 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 

sequel to this performance will come when the man 
meets the cow again, but that is another story. 

A colored woman is just passing. Of course she is 
occupying some menial position somewhere. One won- 
ders why this distinctive color of skin was given to any- 
one in this world. Perhaps it was given for the sake 
of variety. It is an exceedingly expensive variety, 
though, for those who possess it. If, as has been some- 
times asserted, it is a punishment, some one must have 
gone badly wrong away back in the formation period 
to entail such a distinctive mark on a whole race. How 
can any quality that infinite wisdom bestows upon a 
people atone for this burden? There can be no resti- 
tution for it in this world, anyway. People of this race 
may be given the five or ten talents so picturesquely 
described in biblical history ; they may double them in 
accordance with divine instruction; they may possess 
all the qualities which win a way for people who have 
been given a chance in the world, but no power has 
yet been able to give to this race the one thing craved 
by every living being — position and opportunity in the 
world. It is one of the great life problems in this coun- 
try, this race problem, and injustice predominates to a 
degree that is unreasonable and iniquitous, when brains 
and character count nothing against the color of a skin. 
We are told by some philosopher, which one I do not 
know, for philosophy has become such a tangled thing 
that we get mixed in our philosophy — that life has its 
compensations. I would like to hear someone enumer- 
ate the compensations for being black. They must come 
with the solving of those other mysteries, beyond our 



FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 51 

earthly ken, and if they do come in that unknowable 
hereafter, they must be very great. 

The man just passing with the rolling gait and sun- 
burned face has been a sailor. The tan seems fairly to 
be blown and burned into the skin of the men who have 
spent their lives on the water. The experience of the 
man across the way has not been gained on canal boats 
nor the craft of the great lakes, but on vessels tossed 
on the restless bosom of the ocean, and he has touched 
at the ports of the Orient. He bears on his hand and 
arm the inevitable insignia of sailor life, the blue tat- 
too. How enticingly Mark Twain would weave together 
the experiences of this man; how picturesquely John 
Stoddard would have painted the harbors where he has 
anchored; how Riley would have touched us could he 
put his life in poetry; or Howell's clever pen have 
sketched his character did that brilliant author seek for 
his people on the sea. The experiences of this sailor 
would be a broad education for many a man, but to 
him it was only a means of livelihood. We sometimes 
think we could offer valuable suggestions to the Creator 
regarding the running of this universe, but after all, 
things are pretty well leveled and arranged. With our 
diverse dispositions, ambitions and desires there is a 
nearer approach to contentment than we could know, 
were we all looking in the same direction. What a 
hurly-burly we would be in if everybody was headed 
for the same goal. There would be more broken hearts, 
to say nothing of broken heads, if our tastes, ambitions, 
desires were all alike, for ambition and selfish desires 
do not partake of generosity, and we battle for what 
we want, little caring if someone else wants it, too. So 



52 PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 

it is fortunate that our desires are varied, and that 
their fulfillment means, for some pleasure, to others 
work and study, and to others^ still, utility only. 

There is a very neat little exhibition of child discipline 
being carried out on the opposite side of the street. That 
is, it appears neat to me. There is no more willing, not 
to say censorious, judge as to the best methods of bring- 
ing up children than the person who has no children 
to bring up. This is quite a common trait in humanity, 
this knowledge as to the way to bring up other people's 
children, and from personal experience having no chil- 
dren of my own, I see the full force of it. I have many 
times found myself watching and disapproving of the 
methods of my friends in disciplining their children, 
realizing how much better I could do it myself. So I 
am watching this little episode yonder, but give the 
method being adopted there my approval. The child 
in this picture I should judge to be about three years 
of age, and it is behaving in a most unseemly manner. 
It is going along crying in a loud and angry tone of 
voice. The mother is about ten feet ahead of the child, 
but is paying no more attention to it than if it did not 
belong to her at all. She is walking so erectly that 
a plummet would hang true along her spinal column, 
and displays a most impressive dignity. The child has 
thrown itself down on the sidewalk, now, and is yelling 
like a demon, but the mother does not turn her head 
the sixteenth of an inch, and there is a little more vigor 
in the stiffness of her back. The situation seems to 
have dawned on the child, for the uncivilized howls are 
fading into a half -terrified wail, and now it has picked 
itself up and trotted after its mother. Just before they 



FROM HERE AXD THERE 53 

turned the corner at the end of the block, the . child 
slipped its little hand into the waiting one of its mother, 
and they are looking into each other's faces with con- 
fidence and happiness restored. That is what I call dis- 
cipline. 

There goes a man along the street pushing a wheel- 
barrow full of horseshoes. He must be seeking good 
luck by wholesale. What strange things our supersti- 
tions are, anyway. Yet there are few of us who do not 
have some little one tucked away somewhere within our 
anatomy. We look with some apprehension at an act 
perpetrated on Friday; the silver rim of a new moon 
looks more attractive if it appears first on our star- 
board quarter ; our spinal nerve grows chilly if we find 
ourselves seated with thirteen at table, while we actual- 
ly like the feel of a rabbit's foot in our pocket. Fool- 
ish fancies, of course, and yet they sometimes influence 
action. Horseshoes seem like commonplace things to 
base a superstition on; they are too easy to procure. 
Surely there would be less of misfortune in the world 
did horseshoes really bring good luck. How many 
Black Beautj^ histories are concealed in that barrow of 
old shoes, I wonder. Probably there is not one romance 
in the whole collection. It is not likely that one of those 
worn shoes has ever passed under the wire on the swift- 
ly pattering foot of a gamey racer, while the grand- 
stand thundered with plaudits; probably not one has 
ever pressed the sawdust ring with its attendant pomp 
and glitter; not one adorned the foot of a charger 
where the battle surged and thundered, nor a hoof that 
was proudly lifted before the multitude as the wearer 
pranced and pirouetted^ bearing on his back some famed 



54 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 

general or admiral or civilian. More likely is it that 
those now worthless shoes have plodded along in the 
freshly turned furrow; or been worn thin by a cab 
horse trotting along the busy thoroughfare; or per- 
chance they may have belonged to the feet of some ple- 
beian nag, attempting patrician airs as he drew the 
Goddess of Liberty car at some rural celebration, while 
the country band blared forth its strains of agony ; yet 
others of these old shoes may have clung loosely to the 
foot of a worn out veteran as he hobbled wearily along 
on that last journey that ends at the knacker's yard. 



THE SHIRT WAIST. 

When a certain convention of women^s clubs de- 
clared that the shirt waist was an improper habiliment 
for any delegate in that august assembly, it promul- 
gated a heartless, prosaic unenlightened doctrine. From 
whatever standpoint it is regarded, it was an unreason- 
able discrimination, whether considered hygienically, ar- 
tistically, or from a viewpoint of comfort, beauty, util- 
ity or economy. 

In just what era the shirt waist made its appearance 
as a bit of feminine adornment, no one seems to know. 
While biblical pictorial history gives no evidence that 
it was in vogue at so early a day, yet the serene com- 
fort that it appears to bring to its wearer would seem 
to place it in the Garden of Eden period. Such a the- 
ory must be speedily abandoned, however, as no painter 
nor sculptor, upon whom we are compelled to rely for 
our ideas of very early personages, ever, in wildest 



FEOM HERE AND THERE 55 

flights of imagination, gave us an Eve clothed in a shirt 
waist. So, it made its advent later, and must be re- 
garded as a link in the evolutionary movement in dress. 
The fashion plates extant in the days following the 
creation must have been lost in the flood, but we fancy 
the garments of that hazy period were scant, ill-fltting 
and gawkey — perhaps fashioned from animal skins, or 
woven from plant life. It is only when history has 
ushered us into the presence of the Greek and Roman 
that we begin to grow interested in clothes, and every 
now and then, even in this advanced day, some fair 
maiden emerges in a pretty gown akin to the graceful, 
flowing garments that must have added much of attrac- 
tiveness and beauty to those splendid avenues, both of 
Athens and of Rome. Charming as must have been the 
feminine dress of that day, there are many modern 
modes that are decoyingly bewitching, so that it is only 
to man need come the lons^ing^ for a return to the nattv 
tunic or the graceful toga. For lo, these many years 
masculine ambition has been sadly embarrassed in 
dress; and the opportunity for the exercise of creative 
genius has been distressingly small. Length of coat or 
breadth of trousers gives little chance for diversity, or 
the display of imagination, so styles, as applied to 
men^s garments are pathetic in paucity. In only one 
particular do pantaloons remain changeless and unal- 
terable — they always bag at the knee. The man who 
possesses the cleverness to invent a pair of bagless pants 
can laugh to scorn the paltry fortunes acquired through 
the medium of Beaman's Pepsin Gum, Peruna, or Ly- 
dia Pinkham's Compound. The burden of giving any 
gaiety or radiancy to man's attire seems to have fallen 



56 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 

on the half-concealed vest, and gallant and frequent 
have been the endeavors to make this raiment popular 
and attractive, but at each attempt the festive, brilliant 
waistcoat has faded from the landscape, and toppled 
into oblivion. From our present standpoint the possi- 
bility of man ever being able to add anything to the 
brightness or beauty of things, seems so trivial as to 
be hardly worth mentioning. Once, driven to audacity 
by sheer desperation, man made a valiant dash into the 
shirt waist realm, but his repulse was both prompt and 
disconcerting. He was persona non grata in all public 
places. The garment was too closely akin to shirt 
sleeves and every man knows when and where they are 
permissible — time^ after nightfall; place, his back yard. 
Things were different, once. In other more felicitous 
days men had a share in the beautiful things of life, and 
added a little to the picturesqueness of their surround- 
ings. Then they were attired in beauteous colored coats, 
with rich trimmings, and adorned with shining buttons. 
Then they had those silk and satin knee breeches, with 
a wealth of color to choose from, and bright toned 
stockings, gaily bedecked vests from beneath which 
peeped the elegantly ruffled shirt front. That was an 
age when there must have been some satisfaction in 
having clothes. Then man was doing his share toward 
brightening the picture, but now he is only a foil to the 
brilliancy of the gay and tasteful dress of lovely wom- 
anhood. Each nation seems, at some time, to have some 
particular style of garment, which was originally its 
own, though afterward it may have gained, in a cer- 
tain degree, a cosmopolitan character. In the general 
distribution of apparel, however, the shirt waist seems 



FEOM HERE AND THERE 57 

to have been awarded to America, and to have remained 
true to its habitat. It is as distinctly an American in- 
stitution as Bunker Hill Monument, the Irish police- 
man or the unlettered millionaire. The shirt waist is 
a most familiar friend, a domestic ally, an ever-pleasing 
vision. In chambre it commands the kitchen; in lawn, 
through the torrid summer, in flannel throughout the 
chilly winter, it brightens and adorns the avenue; in 
silk and satin, in fancy forms, it enriches the reception 
room. Collectively it presents a picture of kaliedo- 
scopic brilliancy. Whether appearing in the tantaliz- 
ing opaque or the bewitching peek-a-boo it must ever 
claim a loyal host of ardent and approving devotees. 

In the ever-changing customs of feminine dress arises 
the ever-recurring discussion as to what constitutes 
beauty of form. Is it more comely when confined with- 
in the somewhat prescribed limits of the tight-fitting 
corset, or when left in free and unrestricted ugliness. 
This will doubtless always be a mooted question, and 
this is not the proper court for its adjustment. At all 
events, garments have been a part of the great move- 
ment of evolution, in form, at least, if not always in 
beauty. We cannot afford to despise dress, nor its value 
in enhancing our appearance, for we owe it to those 
with whom we are associated, as well as to ourselves, to 
look as well as we can. The facial formation of most of 
us is not so artistic that we can afford to scorn any em- 
bellishment of surroundings. The dowdy woman is an 
offense, a misfit, a clown. It is not an evidence of su- 
periority, independence nor good sense to despise be- 
coming clothes. Neatness is an attractive quality which 
reaches perfection in the well-selected, sprucely fitting 



5S FEOM HEEE AJfD THEEE 

shirt waist. Even though aa autocratic women's con- 
vention stamped it ''disapproved," the masculine por- 
tion of this nation, at least, applauds the shirt waist, 
and would joyously embrace its wearer. 



BACILLI. 



Science has been tremendously busy these last few 
years, and we are reaping the benefit. What did our 
fathers and mothers know of microbes and of bacilli? 
What more do we know than that they seem to be an 
omnipresent^ omnivorous and omnipotent quantity, and 
at the same time infinitesimal ? Our ancestors had colds 
just as we do, but how little they understood that the 
cause of the discomfort was a little bug syndicate hold- 
ing a session in the front chamber of their intellectual 
temple. A cold is a doubly disagreeable thing when one 
views it from this standpoint. Uninvited guests are 
never very acceptable, but when they come with such 
explicitly hostile intent, one naturally grows blood- 
thirsty towards them. 

Every disease which seizes upon poor humanity, in 
these days of advanced thought and research, seems to 
be resultant from attacks of these squirming, malignant 
atoms. Illness has never been a thing much sought af- 
ter nor regarded as desirable; but before science in- 
serted its probe into the mysteries of sickness it was 
considered in a measure proper. Now it does not pos- 
sess even respectability. 

The human body then has become the abiding place 
of all styles and species of bugs — serviceable, kind, dis- 



PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 59 

reputable, and malevolent. We eat them, drink them, 
breathe them, absorb them; indeed, we seem to be able 
to do everything but expel them. Horrid thought ! We 
shrink from the feeling that after we are dead, the 
crawling things of earth feed on our insensate flesh; 
but to know that we go about daily, gorged with bacilli, 
which we are liable to impart to anyone with whom we 
may come in contact — ^that is positively abhorrent. 

The most pitiless proposition laid down by the med- 
ical fraternity, however, is that there are bacilli in 
kisses. If researches of this character are allowed to 
continue, cold, harsh, remorseless science will rob life 
of all that makes it sweet, joyous, and harmonious. 
Women — some women, not all — have confidentially 
averred that a kiss is much more palatable from mus- 
taehed lips; and now science unpityingly replies that 
the mustache is the bacilli's paradise, that within it 
they caper, flourish, and expand. 

Scientific investigation would apparently go to any 
length, even robbing courtship of all its beatitude. 
Think of a proposal, with all of its attending ecstacies 
forbidden, because in the rapturous embrace and meet- 
ing of the lips, there might be an exchange of bacilli. 
This bogey will never gain any substantial footing in 
this world. He demands too great a sacrifice. The 
moonlight ride, the evening stroll, the secluded dell, the 
swinging hammock, the shady porch, the gliding skiff, 
with their absolutely necessary condiments, all ruth- 
lessly forbidden by these insatiate bacilli. It can never 
be. 

All this expert knowledge of microbes and microbe 
life must be an interesting study to the scientist, for it 



60 PEOM HERE AND THERE 

is a wonderful discovery. To be able to go microbe 
hunting and be successful; to follow these Infinitesimal 
creatures to their lair ; to bottle them, to classify them ; 
to find the correct bacillicide, requires research that is 
appalling. Yet one sometimes wonders if this knowl- 
edge is not for the scientific world alone ; if it were not 
just as well, were it less bruited and less disseminated. 
Only science can grapple with the affair, anyway ; only 
scientific investigation can master it. The layman is ut- 
terly powerless before this novel discovery and his self- 
respect would be greater, were he ignorant of it. 

With all the increase of knowledge along these lines 
disease and death go on; some forms increasing; new 
methods seming ever less effective than the simple ones 
of our forefathers.. After all, are we so much farther 
advanced than those who established the foundations 
upon which we have built? We live faster, to be sure, 
but that may be due to the more rapid movement of 
our bacilli. 

During all the years preceding this discovery of 
germ life, before bacteriology itself was born, where 
were these innumerable microbes? Have they come 
with our so-called progress, and is the possession of ba- 
cilli an evidence of culture and advanced civilization? 
Of course if it is, we must accept it, and be willing to 
sacrifice ourselves to the extent of being peripatetic ba- 
cilli tenements. Yet it must be confessed that the 
thought is somwhat humiliating. There is something 
strange in the fact, v/hich must be acknowledged, that 
what we term a higher civilization, a greater culture, 
and advanced citizenship, brings shorter lives, more 
diseases, debilitated bodies, and a greater amount of 



FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 61 

physical suffering. We are in no way qualified to un- 
dergo the hardships of our fathers. True, the life they 
led looks to us unendurable; so dull, narrow, and un- 
eventful. They surpassed us in one thing, though — they 
didn't have bacilli, or if they did, they were not de- 
meaned by the knowledge of them. 

Bacteriology has recently discovered a new species of 
bacillus. It is a gas generator. Once this little malign- 
ant creature gets burrowed in its victim's anatomy a 
gas is formed, and the afflicted party degenerates into 
an inflated gas bag, although he be not a politician. 
When the victim is punctured, the gas escapes and 
bums with a blue flame. Had Nero known of this ba- 
cillic phenomenon, he might have inoculated all the 
Christians in Rome, then pricked them in numerous 
places, and given his friends even a more spectacular 
and refined entertainment than that with which he ac- 
tuUy regaled them. 

Doubtless scientific investigation has much in store 
for us still ; but let us hope that subsequent revelations 
will be less unkind than those that unveiled the lively 
bacillus. 

The End. 



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